From 1986 to probably 2003, I went through a phase that, while irrelevant in terms of “reality”, was considered “cool” by myself as well as my peers.

I knew EVERYTHING there was to know about the music scenes I, personally, enjoyed, and whatever else was out there.

It all started when I bought my first LP. By the time “My Hometown” came on, I knew every single member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. I knew Falco was not the Rob or Ferdi Bolland that appeared to have written every single song on “Falco 3″. At the drop of a hat, I could mention (and still can) the three members of norwegian pop sensations a-ha. I knew there was a  Kiss and a Twisted Sister, although years would go by before I started to develop a taste for, um, heavier music.  Although I never enjoyed the pop scene in Mexico, I was well aware of who the main artists were – the Timbiriches and the Flans and the Caifanes and the Cafe Tacubas…

Then came my love for metal. And, as many metal fans, I made the mistake of believing that if you listened to metal, and dared to even consider thinking of listening to something else, you were a poseur.
Still, my dominance of all the irrelevant and minute details of every metal band imaginable was very much alive.
Once, on a very bad local cable show where the local DJ would play metal videos for half an hour, disguised with an oxygen mask and claiming he was transmitting from the centre of the Earth, they had a contest. “The first person to call and name all four members of Motley Crue will win this shitty cassette by a band from Brownsville, TX”. At this point, I had never listened to a Motley Crue song other than ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ which appeared on a compilation LP I had purchased years before. Still, I had read a couple of Circus magazines. Without a doubt, I picked up the phone and spouted off the names of these four people who had yet to become relevant in my life.
The cassette sucked, by the way.

Then, a funny thing happened. At the same time, metal was kicked out of the mainstream by some people from Seattle, and cable networks in Mexico FINALLY got around to realizing just how big of a deal this MTV thing was.

And while I could say the names of the three Nirvana members (who couldn’t at the time?), I started having difficulty keeping up with who the fuck was in the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who was in Pearl Jam, and who played alongside David Pirner in Soul Asylum. I was no longer able to mention entire discographies of these people who were all of a sudden unavoidable.
That is the power of MTV. Or, let me rephrase. That’s how weak people are. Here I was, in 1993, preaching to people who had moved on to questionably “better” things, saying things like “…but… but… Pantera!”
Man, was I pissed. I shunned everything MTV (except for Beavis & Butthead, and Headbanger’s Ball – the latin version, hosted by some insufferable Chilean dude whose signing off catchphrase I still rip off to this very day: “Stay Heavy”). I shifted through moods between “GRRR WHERE’S MY METAL!” and “I WAS REALLY GOOD AT SOMETHING! WHY DID YOU TAKE IT AWAY!”.
I guess it didn’t help matters much that some of the bands I enjoyed back then tried selling out to the “alternative” crowd. And failed miserably.
I’m not even talking about Metallica, whose “black album” I initially shunned as a sell-out (hey, I was on a bandwagon), although years later I fail to see what’s wrong with songs like “Through The Never” and “The God That Failed”.
No, I’m talking about Megadeth, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, and… yes… Warrant.

Still, I had Slayer, Sepultura and Pantera, for mainstream stuff, and whatever other bands I could hear on those lonely saturday nights. I searched high and low for Fear factory and Strapping Young Lad albums, to no avail.

Then came the internet, in the late 90′s. I had all the infomation I ever needed about any band that ever existed, as long as I found my way into the appropriate Geocities page.
I was awesome for a week, because I knew the “real” names of Munky and Head, from Korn!

Then, Puddle of Mudd and Vertical Horizon and Marilyn Manson and Days Of The Sun appeared. And Deftones, and little by little this new thing became collectively known as nu metal. Unfortunately, the genre was plagued by lackluster bands like Limp Bizkit and this other bunch of clowns I came to appreciate years later: Slipknot. But it was all the same to me. Who needed to know who was in fucking Coal Chamber? Who, really, had anything good to them happen by knowing the name of the red ‘darth maul’ guy in Mushroomhead? Or was it Chimaera? Or StainD?
It was all a big pile of meh.

I’ll never forget the conversation I had with a friend. It changed my life forever. “there are these files called mp3″, he said, “that are music files. you can download music for free”.

That changed everything. Not that I’m particularly proud of downloading music, but then again, I guess I’m not ashamed either.
Legal aspects and intellectual property aside (I’ll buy Devin Townsend a beer next time he’s in fucking Ciudad Victoria), your whole perspective changes when you have a limited budget, and when you don’t.

The downside to all this is that I lost whatever ability I had to know ABOUT the music. An aspect I had lived with all my life. Who plays who? Who left the band and why? When did they release a Japan-only EP?
Who the fuck has time for that.

Between my aging and worrying about more important stuff than the latest Taproot album, and the exponential increase in music styles and performers, it became impossible to know even 5% of what was going on.

You might recall a post I made a while ago. Suddenly, the internet was abuzz with this Lady Gaga thing. And Katy Perry (if that’s her name). And people with weird last names like Mraz.  And I had no idea who they were or what they did.
I was too busy trying to distinguish between the Lambs of God and the Leviathans and the Mastodons within my own genre, thank you very much.

Then, something funny happened. For a year or so, I was privileged with Sirius radio. Since the “metal” channel played only Black Sabbath and Dio (what “true” metal fans love, if only because they’re classic), I started switching over to the Alternative station. And I became enamored with a few dozen songs, artists and styles which, admittedly, were new to me. Yet, I had no interest in knowing anything about the bands.
Suddenly, at 37, there’s nothing beneficial to knowing information about Snow Patrol, MGMT or The Decemberists. Actually, I’m way beyond the point where knowing about these artists is “cool”, and starts becoming “creepy”.

I’ve always loved music. The pop I listened to in the 80′s, the ever-so-many incarnations of “metal”, the industrial, the alternative, the hip-hop, the classical. I’ve bought over 2000 LPs, cassettes, CDs and VHSs and DVDs. I’ve spent hours upon hours on youtube seeing “never-before-seen (by me)” footage of many, many bands. I’ve read more Wikipedia pages than should be permissible by the medical profession. I’ve tried – I’ve really tried – to maintain a relationship with my music. Not only the music itself, but everything around it.

This current trend of mass-media coverage of music targeted to 10-year-olds pisses me off. I’ve been surrounded by kids all year, and all I hear is “Miley Cyrus”, “that other one”, and that “Justin Bieber” thing which looks like a cross between Macaulay Culkin and Ellen Degeneres. THAT, I want none of. If this is where the music industry is going, I’ll keep my Iron Maidens and my Anthrax’s and my Soilworks. No wonder the other trend is to go “retro”.

In any case, my whole point is this. If it had happened even one year ago, I would have killed myself. My music collection is a great part of my life. But since it happened two weeks ago, even I’m surprised of how well I took it.
See, there was an accident here wherein a stupid dog knocked my external disk drive from the table onto the floor – the very same disk drive (THE HELLION, I named it) which contained not only all of my music, but all of my files. Photos, text files, backups from my old computer… EVERYTHING.
Everything I ever did on a computer was there. And it is no more.
How do you exact revenge on a stupid creature that doesn’t know not to eat the other dog’s turds? You don’t. Whatever happened, happened. And I’m surprisingly OK with it.
Well, no. That’s not accurate. I’m not “OK” with it. I wish it wouldn’t have happened. But there’s no way in hell I’m going through the trouble of collecting back all my music. Whatever’s on my iPod will have to do for now.

Who needs those Britny Fox and NOFX and Jag Panzer and Ministry and Entombed albums anyway, right?

:(

The Iceberg